Page:The Life of William Morris.djvu/559

150 Holywell, which I daresay you have forgotten: it used to be the room of the Architectural Society when I was a boy, and is now a music room: it is just opposite where Janey used to live—Lord, how old I am! Well, we had a fine lot of supporters, town and gown both, who put on red ribbons and acted as stewards, but the 'enemy' got in in some numbers, and prepared for some enjoyment. Charley was in the chair and led off well, and they heard him with only an average amount of howling: you must understand that there were but some 20 or 30 of those enemies, and perhaps 100 declared friends, with some 250 indifferents who really came to listen to us; the hall was quite full. I had to get up when Charley sat down; I was rather nervous before I began, as it was my first long speech without book, but the noise and life braced me up, and after all I knew my subject, so I fired off my speech fairly well I think: if I hadn't, our friends the enemy would have found it out and chaffed me with all the mercilessness of boys. Of course they howled and stamped at certain catchwords, and our people cheered, so that it was very good fun. Aveling came next: they had really listened to me, even the noisy ones; but it seems they had agreed that A. at any rate should not be allowed to speak; but he began very cleverly and won their ingenuous hearts so that they listened to him better than they did to me. Then came question-time, and that was more than they could bear; after two or three questions asked and answered, the joke of the evening came off by one young gentleman letting off a bottle of chemical which made a horrible stink, and the respectables began to leave and both the fighting [bodies] to draw nearer to the platform. Then by Aveling's advice Charley, who was by the